1000 Flowers for the Planet: September 2015

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #624 Buy Bread Without Plastic

Up until the early 1970s you could still buy your bread from the man who travelled around in the little bread van selling loaves from the back of his vehicle – full loaves or half loaves, still warm from the oven. Now we have to go to the shop to buy our bread – either the corner store, the supermarket or the bakery. Most of us buy our mass produced bread in plastic bags secured at the top with a little plastic clip, or plastic coated pieces of wire. We create a lot of plastic landfill from our bread-eating habits alone. Both the plastic bag and the plastic clip are dangerous items to let loose in the environment. Plastic bread bags are just as capable of killing marine life as any plastic carry bag from the supermarket. They float in waterways and clog up anything they come into contact with. The bread ties are lethal too, adding to the billions of tiny plastic bits we toss away during our busy lives. Whole islands of sea birds suffer from the consequences of mistaking little pieces of plastic as food for their young, who soon starve to death, their carcasses rotting away to reveal mounds of plastic where a stomach once existed. Multiply each loaf of bread you buy that generates plastic waste by the number of loaves you buy every year, multiplied by the number of people around the world who do the same – just a few?

We can change our habits and create better outcomes by taking our own container to the bakery and buying a fresh loaf, not wrapped in plastic, and put straight into the container to take home. Eliminating just two pieces of plastic from everyday life will make a huge contribution to cleaning up the planet. It’s an idea for those who want to live plastic-free lives and a worthwhile idea for those who can only cope with one change at a time. It will save resources, save money on environmental cleanups and save a lot of wildlife from ghastly deaths.

Tuesday, 29 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet #623 Observe Inventors Day

Today is Inventor’s day – well it is in Argentina. Not every country recognises Inventor’s Day, which is celebrated on different dates in various countries around the world. 29^th September is the birthday of the inventor of the ballpoint pen, László József Bíró. Each country celebrates the day for a different reason and in different ways.

This flower suggestion is for all of us everywhere to celebrate inventors and their gifts to humanity, particularly those ideas that will create a better future. We need inventors, particularly as we head into the future with an awareness of how much damage is being done to the planet by our current actions. We need inventors to create sustainable energy sources, sustainable farming and building practices, ways to stop encroaching on natural habitats, ways to live in harmony with the planet – there’s a lot of work to be done. Let’s encourage more inventive thought, at every level, and take care of this planet better than ever.

Monday, 28 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #622 Skip the Goodies Bag

For a few decades it has been the norm for children to come home from birthday parties with a plastic bag full of goodies. These goodies are nearly always pieces of plastic rubbish – little items designed to take parents’ money from them in return for a little piece of plastic that entertains a child for a minute or two. What a waste of resources! Birthday parties used to be really simple events, with children having fun playing games and eating party food. It’s the birthday child who is supposed to receive the presents, so why be obliged to give every other child a gift? Children need to learn that it’s not always all about them. At a birthday party it’s about the child having the birthday. It’s good for children to learn how to focus on other people and not focus on what they get out of it for themselves. It’s the gift of giving, not receiving. So let’s give a gift to the planet by not contributing further to useless plastic waste that only ends up in landfill, or worse, the stomach of a baby albatross, and skip the goodies bag.

Sunday, 27 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #621 Use a Glass or Aluminium Straw

A staggering 500 million drinking straws are used in the USA every DAY! This is an amazing statistic, and even if it were exaggerated ten-fold we would still be left with a staggering amount. This figure, when multiplied by the number of days in the years gives us 182,500,000,000 plastic straws used every year in the USA. The straw manufacturers must be wringing their hands with glee. And we haven’t even mentioned the entire rest of the world where straws are also used.

Flower #73 suggested refusing straws altogether, which is really the best idea. After all, as adults, surely we are quite capable of lifting a glass to our mouth to drink. If you’re worried about hygiene, please have a think about who has touched the tip of the straw you’re drinking from. However, many of these straws come wrapped in plastic or paper – more resources being used for a single use product, only to be tossed into landfill or allowed to escape into the environment. How many of you have seen the video on the Internet of the turtle having a straw extracted from its nostril? Not a pretty sight, was it?

Straws in the environment are a huge danger to wildlife and marine creatures. They are a waste of valuable resources, so if you haven’t got the hang of drinking out of a glass yet, then buy yourself a glass or aluminium straw that can be washed and reused as many times as you like. By having your own straw you’re also more likely to take care of it as you carry it around, and you’ll be aware of how your actions affect the environment.

Saturday, 26 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #620 Use a Tiffin

This is such a cute idea, which comes from India and other Asian countries, where family members take hot lunches to loved ones in a little carry pot. The lunch is called a Tiffin and the container a Tiffin carrier. The idea has taken off in Melbourne, Australia where an enterprising business provides hot meals delivered around the CBD in Tiffin carriers, which can be purchased outright by the end user and swapped over on a daily basis when lunch is delivered. They make the deliveries by bicycle. What a great idea!

Tiffin carriers are made from various materials, including plastic of course, but you can get all-metal tiffins if you’re living a plastic free or plastic ‘less’ life. They make a fantastic alternative to most other takeaway lunch containers, which are usually made of single use plastic – using fossil resources and creating plastic waste and landfill. See how a Tiffin carrier could fit into your life.

Friday, 25 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #619 Set Up Office Recycling

Many of us recycle at home as a matter of course – the council provides us with recycling collections so we use them. But it’s surprising how many offices don’t take the simplest of recycling actions. There are a few things you can do to get this started at your place of employment. Always make sure the admin areas have boxes to collect waste paper for recycling and ensure it goes into the correct collection bin. Add some other recycling methods to the staff kitchen or canteen area – have two bins, each labelled, one with the word ‘recycling’ and the other with the word ‘landfill’. These visuals will help people associate their actions with a consequence and improve their behaviour. See if someone is interested in taking home (appropriate) food scraps to add to their compost or feed their chickens.

You could even take office recycling further by having different people be responsible for different types of recycling collections. Someone could be responsible for ensuring batteries are taken to the correct recycling drop off point instead of going in the bin and subsequently to landfill where they can do a lot of toxic damage to the environment. Someone else could be responsible for soft plastics, or packaging waste, or metal waste, or whatever your company produces – have a brain storming session to see how you can collectively help the environment, then be sure to put your plans in action.

Thursday, 24 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #618 Brew Your Own Beer

Another great grass-roots idea that helps the planet in a few ways is to brew your own beer. There are many sites on the Internet to help you with the process, and shops in the ‘real’ world to buy the supplies and chat with likeminded people to get ideas and problem solve. By brewing your own beer you will be recycling the same bottles over and over, which means you don’t continually use new resources, which is what you’d be doing if you bought beer from a retailer on a regular basis. Brewing your own beer is cost effective, plus you have control over the ingredients. But the biggest benefits to the planet are keeping resources out of landfill and not contributing to the energy required to constantly recycle materials. It might also be lots of fun!

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #617 Beware Those Receipts

Do you like the feel of that receipt paper that comes with all your purchases? It’s nice and smooth – lovely to rub your fingers across. Sadly it is paper coated with BPA, a type of plastic that was used to make baby products, sippy cups and reusable water bottles, for example, but which has subsequently been phased out from those products. The health effects of BPA have been questioned, and although caution has been taken in some areas of its use, such as baby products, it can still be found in many places. Receipts are just one of those places, and there are investigations into the effects of these little strips of information on shop assistants who handle them all day in their workplace. It’s thought the chemical may be absorbed through the skin.

Even if we put health issues aside, the fact that BPA exists as a coating on our receipts means they cannot be recycled. Have you been putting them in the recycling thinking you were doing the right thing? Shouldn’t do it. The BPA contaminates recycled paper products. You have to throw them away – that means you have to throw them into landfill.

Tuesday, 22 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #616 Observe World Car-Free Day

Today is World Car-Free Day – a day when we can all make an effort to leave the car at home and move around in different ways. Maybe you could walk to work, or catch the train, bus or tram. Maybe you could work from home, as the Internet has opened up this avenue to so many workers these days. Maybe you could sit down and work out ways to use your car less during the week, by bundling your errands and planning your requirements (see Flower #40 Drive Smart – Bundle Errands). Walk the children to school instead of jumping into that oversized SUV, actually listen to what they have to say as you walk along, and spend some quality time with them. Decide to stay at home for the day and catch up on some chores or paperwork, or plan a slow cooked meal for the family to enjoy. Free yourself from the car for a day and see how well you actually cope, and how different you feel, then take the next step and extend the idea into the rest of your life. The benefits to the planet are obvious: less fossil fuel being used, less pollution, less congestion on the roads, better health through walking, more time with family, less stress. Give it a go on World Car-Free Day.

Monday, 21 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #615 Observe World Gratitude Day

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Today is World Gratitude Day. The celebration started in 1965 in Hawaii when an international gathering decided that it would be a good idea to have one day per year to formally express gratitude and appreciation for the many wonderful things to be found in the world. The hope of the founders of Gratitude Day is that by taking time, one day a year, to reflect on the many amazing things we have in our lives, it would positively impact our well-being and make us happier, more contented people. If the majority of us concentrated on gratitude, there might be less conflict, and the world would be a far better place. Take time today to think about what you’re grateful for.

Sunday, 20 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #614 Bring Back Glass Bottles

There was a time when we had our milk delivered by the milkman, in glass bottles. We could also have soft drinks (soda) delivered by the crate – in glass bottles. We got our water from the tap, so we never needed bottles, plastic or glass, for that. If we could do it before, we can do it again. Imagine how much plastic could be kept from landfill if these drinks came in glass bottles. Instead of spending time and energy on recycling plastic bottles our energies could be transferred across to sterilising glass bottles. Once the bottle is manufactured in glass it already exists and can be used over and over and over. If breakage and safety are cited as reasons why we shouldn’t use glass, then let’s grow up and learn how to handle things with care. Children can also be taught how to handle with care. Glass is 100% recyclable, so any breakages could be put through a recycling program. Let’s push to bring back the glass bottle and keep plastic out of our environment.

Saturday, 19 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #613 Beware Aseptic Packaging

Aseptic packaging is used for products like juice boxes, long-life milk containers, soup containers, wine boxes – products that generally have a longer shelf life. The problem with aseptic packaging is that it is hard to recycle and there are few recycling plants that can handle the process, so generally the packaging ends up in landfill. As landfill is a huge issue, and packaging is mostly a single use product that eats up our natural resources, the planet would be able to breathe a lot easier if we tried to avoid aseptic packaging.

Friday, 18 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #612 Beware Bottle Caps

Lots of people are not going to bother avoiding plastic bottles. The convenience of bottled water and sugary drinks far outweighs their conscience. Many people buy these things because they believe the plastic can be recycled anyway, and that makes it okay, right? Wrong!

If that’s your way of thinking, that recycling the plastic bottle is doing your bit for the planet, then let this suggestion be a little challenge for you. First understand that not everything you put into the recycling bin will be recycled. There are lots of different types of recycling plants and the one in your area may not have the capacity to deal with everything you throw their way. For example, plastic bags can clog up the machinery, causing expensive down-time as the machines are fixed. Importantly, plastic bottles that still have the cap screwed on are often picked out of the heap and thrown into landfill, because the cap holds all the air inside the bottle, preventing it from being squashed to go through the machinery. By removing the plastic cap before you put the bottle into your recycling bin, you increase the likelihood of the bottle actually being recycled.

Note that all of this will depend on the type of recycling plant in your area. You need to educate yourself to know what can and cannot be put through the machinery, particularly if you cannot commit to not creating the waste in the first place. We all have choices. Beware the bottle cap, remove it before tossing it and at least try to do something better than you already do – that will be a great step in the right direction.

Thursday, 17 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #611 Discover Your Local Recycling Centre

Most people would tell you that the little symbol on the bottom of plastic packaging with a number surrounded by chasing arrows indicates that packaging is recyclable. But this would be quite wrong. That symbol does nothing more than indicate what type of plastic that packaging is made of. This, in turn, may assist recycling centres in their sorting, but it is no guarantee whatsoever that when you throw that packaging into your recycling bin and feel like you’ve done your bit for the planet, that it will actually be recycled.

Not all recycling facilities are created equal. Some a bigger than others, some can handle a huge variety of packaging and others cannot. Your local council has probably already given you guidelines as to what you can put into your recycling bin, but if you take this a step further you’ll be amazed. Contact the recycling centre that handles your waste and see if you can go for a tour of their facility. Many do have scheduled tours – keep an eye open for them. Once there, you will be able to see for yourself precisely what does and what does not get recycled. This will make you more aware of how your purchasing habits affect the planet, and how much of your ‘recycling’ is actually sent to landfill.

We can’t rely on other people to handle things on our behalf. You have to get going for yourself and learn about your effects on this planet so you can make better decisions about your behaviour. Then make the adjustments necessary. Let’s keep ourselves educated and keep ‘stuff’ out of landfill.

Wednesday, 16 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #610 Observe International Day for Protection of the Ozone Layer

Today is International Day for Preservation of the Ozone Layer. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. The ozone layer is what protects us from the harmful UV rays of the sun and allows life on earth to survive. It’s a day we can all use individually to stop and reflect on what we are doing on a personal level to protect this layer. Are we avoiding the use of any products that would cause depletion of the ozone? Have we reduced our intake of meat and meat products ? Are we reducing our fossil fuel energy use and consumption or can we do a lot more? What other things can we do to continue to protect the ozone layer for the future? Share your ideas.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #609 Become a Bottle Free Town

In Flower #608 Demand Free Public Water the idea was to assist those people who have already decided to avoid plastic bottles, and their dire consequences to the planet, by carrying a water bottle with them wherever they go and refilling it throughout the day. One special town in Australia has gone the whole yard by tackling the plastic bottle problem head-on. Bundanoon in New South Wales decided to ban single-use plastic bottled water completely, instead offering reusable bottles for purchase and installing water refill stations around the town and at the school. This idea was the result of people standing by their convictions. They did not want a corporation to come into their area to extract local water resources, so it was the next step to reject the end product of that type of water extraction i.e. bottled water. The town functions very well without bottled water, and everyone has access to good quality drinking water. Bundanoon is the world’s first bottled water free town.

This is the perfect example to show that it can be done. It requires some conviction and some organisation from everyone in the area, but that’s how change happens – the voice of the people makes the difference. The voice of the people has created revolutions in the past. Saving the planet from our own destructive vices also comes from the voice of the people. Think about starting an action in your own area and becoming a bottle free town.

Monday, 14 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #608 Demand Free Public Water

In the United States of America a major action is taking place to reduce the demand for bottled water (and sugary drinks) and to get people drinking their own tap water at a much lower cost than what they pay for bottled water. Plastic bottles are a disaster to the planet, using valuable fossil resources, creating the need for expensive recycling programs, and contributing to massive landfill issues. In the States the idea of drinking tap water and taking it with you in your own drink bottle has been extended even further to cater for those needing to refill their bottles throughout the day. Cafes and restaurants across the country have become part of the solution by signing up as partners in a network of establishments where people can walk in and ask to have their bottle filled with tap water – for free. They can be discovered through searching the site at www.tapitwater.com or by downloading an app for your phone.

As at the time of writing I could find no such program in Australia. Drinking fountains used to be available to the public everywhere – in the olden days. They need to be brought back into fashion, by encouraging councils and governments to replace them. It would be far cheaper to maintain a network of drinking fountains across the country than to deal with all the plastic waste the bottled beverage industry creates. Cafes and restaurants could be encouraged to create their own free water program here in Australia too.

In England their drinking fountains can be found via www.findafountain.org. What’s happening in your country?

Sunday, 13 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #607 Start Your Own Campaign

Yes, you have the power to do this, and the Internet and social media make it even easier. People can and do have a voice. If there is something that you’re passionate about – reducing pollution, eliminating animal cruelty, stopping corporate greed, human rights, keeping plastic out of the environment, clean water, etc etc etc – then do something about it. Start your own campaign through www.change.org or www.sumofus.org or www.storyofstuff.org and get some action happening. Speak out against the wrongs you see being done in the world. Join lots of other people who are already taking action, and be part of the story of making this planet a better place to live – for every living thing.

Saturday, 12 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #606 Write Letters to Editors

Encourage conversation. Assist the art of debate. Share ideas.

By writing letters to editors you can open discussion on issues that are important to you, whether they be plastic in the environment, corporate greed, industrial pollution, local concerns – anything you think needs debate, discussion and input from the community. By talking to each other – respectfully – we come up with ideas, solutions, and better ways to do things.

Friday, 11 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #605 Get Your Council to Ban Plastic Bags

Plastic bags are doing a lot of damage to the environment. I didn’t realise how much until I joined in Clean Up Australia Day and went to my local park to help pick up rubbish. I found lots of biodegradable plastic bags that had definitely started to ‘biodegrade’! They were now lots and lots of tiny pieces of plastic that all fell apart into such small bits I couldn’t actually pick any of it up. This stuff stays in our environment – it doesn’t disappear. It comes back to us too. Would you sit down to your evening meal and sprinkle it with tiny bits of plastic before eating it? No? Are you sure your dinner doesn’t have plastic bits in it already?

Let’s do something about plastic bags. There are many places across the world where they have banned plastic bags in their community. It hasn’t made the plastics companies very happy at all, but it’s time we all stood up and said, “we’re not going to take this!” Be proactive. Get your local council or governing body to ban plastic bags in your area. People should be able to say what they will and will not accept in their environment, and this one is a major contributor to environmental problems. If we can get bans on smaller levels, eventually we will be doing things differently – better – and that will be a benefit to every living creature.

Thursday, 10 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #604 Give a Bag Away

Plastic bags are such a bad thing for the environment and are breaking down out there, leaving tiny, tiny pieces of plastic everywhere, to be consumed by animals and marine life – and therefore come back to us in the food chain. If you’re already doing it better by taking your own reusable bags to the supermarket (and every other shop you go into), then take this one step further. The next time you’re standing in a queue and notice the person behind you doesn’t have reusable bags, then give them one of yours. It’s a way of starting a brief conversation about helping the planet and the person receiving your gift may be encouraged to start doing things to make a difference too. The more people doing things ‘better’, the more likely we are of making the future of the planet much brighter.

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #603 Brew Your Own Soft Drink / Soda

Instead of buying plastic bottles filled with sugary drinks, make your own at home. There are lots of recipes on the Internet to guide you through the process of making your own soft drink (USA soda). By making your own at home you will be completely aware of what ingredients go into the drink and you can use 100% recyclable glass bottles, which won’t leach anything into your drink. You will be keeping a lot of plastic out of landfill and the environment, and perhaps because you put effort into making it yourself, you’ll drink a little less of the sugary stuff and cherish it as a treat, helping you reduce your waistline and improve your health. You’ll save money too.

Tuesday, 8 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #602 Buy a Chemical-Free Cleaning Guide

A great way to keep chemicals out of your life is to clean your home and office with chemical-free products. Basically it means returning to the ways of our ancestors, who had fewer allergies than we do these days, and who were much kinder to themselves and the planet on which they walked. So find yourself a chemical-free cleaning guide.

We have a terrific lady here in Australia named Shannon Lush who has published several helpful books with a plethora of ways to easily clean your home, remove stains and organise your cleaning routine. All of her methods are kind to the planet. Find her at www.shannonlush.com or go looking for the green cleaning guru in your own country. Don’t forget to share your knowledge.

Monday, 7 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #601 Avoid Chemicals

Avoiding chemicals is an important objective, because chemicals end up in the environment where they shouldn’t be, and everything we do creates a chemical cocktail with consequences we cannot be entirely sure about. Chemicals are everywhere: in our food, on our food, in production of goods, in medication, in cleaning products, in houses, in cars, in offices, in environments – everywhere. There’s not a lot we can do about many of the chemicals in our lives – they’re put there by other people, without out knowledge and our consent most of the time. It’s really easy for us to continue about our lives without giving them a thought, because to think about it might be a bit scary. However, we can do something on individual levels. We can keep ourselves fit and healthy by eating organic foods and staying clear of medication as much as possible. We can think about the types of products we buy and what toxic concoctions they may contain. We can clean our homes with water, avoiding all those chemical cleaning and antibacterial products that damage our health. We can garden without chemicals, as our ancestors did.

All it takes is a bit of time to stop and think about what we’re doing, and how that affects the environment.

Sunday, 6 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #600 Recycle Your Fridge

It is possible to recycle your fridge, rather than send it to landfill. Some areas have buy-back programs such as the one at http://www.fridgebuyback.com.au/ covering a lot of New South Wales. But even if you can’t gain a few dollars for your old fridge, there are places who will take that old item, de-gas it and recycle much of the materials. If we don’t participate in this type of recycling, we create fridge graveyards that leach toxic chemicals into the land where they are washed by the rain into our drinking water. Is that a good enough picture to help you choose to recycle your fridge? Give it a go and help the planet.

Saturday, 5 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #599 Buy Natural Grease-Proof Paper

Are you 100% positive that the grease-proof paper you are using does not contain chemicals? Do you know the process it has undergone in manufacture? If not, then buy natural grease-proof paper, which is made chemical-free and uses natural raw materials. Don’t muck around with your family’s health. Find ways to ensure chemical and plastic contact is minimal or completely absent with ideas such as buying natural grease-proof paper for your cooking needs.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #598 Buy Eco Fabrics

Just as Peace Silk (Flower #597) is one eco fabric, being a natural fibre, other fabrics are available that are better for the environment than others. The natural fibres are silk, cotton, linen, wool, alpaca, cashmere, and hemp, and by now there have been enough Flower suggestions to show that not everything is at it seems i.e. cotton is responsible for 25% of the worlds chemicals used in production, making it really important to choose organic cotton. Reread Flowers #241 Buy Organic Cotton T-Shirts, #581 Rethink Cashmere, #582 Choose Alpaca, #329 Wear Natural Fibres and #536 Buy Green Jeans to be reminded of the costs to the environment for some of the clothes we wear. Many people are unaware that microfiber is actually made from plastic. Furthermore, every time you wash nylon, polyester and microfiber clothing, tiny, tiny balls of plastic are washed away with the rinse water, into the water systems where they are consumed by fish – then come back to you when you eat seafood.

More people are learning how to sew, to make their own clothes for the satisfaction of being self-sufficient, using creative talent, saving money during challenging economic times, and to be able to wear something more unique. This Flower suggestion is to choose fabrics that have less impact on the planet – those that are grown sustainably, avoid animal cruelty, don’t use chemicals, are not made of plastic and which ultimately feel great to wear.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #597 Buy Peace Silk

Many people know that silk comes from the silk worm but are you aware that the silk worm is boiled alive inside its cocoon before the single strand of beautiful fibre is then wound onto a reel? It makes silk a little less beautiful, doesn’t it? Animal cruelty isn’t just about the fluffy creatures we find appealing, it’s about any living creature.

Peace silk comes from the practice of allowing the silk worm to emerge from the cocoon before taking the silk and winding it onto reels. Obviously it really isn’t as simple as all that, but you can search the Internet for yourself to gain a fuller picture. The practices for growing silk vary from place to place, with a combination of boiling the insect and allowing it to escape the cocoon often being the way of production.

If we demand silk production to be as organic and natural as possible, then we create better practices for the insects involved. It’s not about saving every single egg laid by every single moth, because that would be quite ridiculous and not at all truth in nature. It’s about returning to the natural order of things and if we can find a way to do this, we can use natural fibres instead of chemically produced and plastic fibres, which is also better for the environment.

Wednesday, 2 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #596 Buy Threads on Wooden Reels

If you sew then you will know how cotton and polyester thread comes on little plastic reels. When you run out of thread there’s a piece of plastic to throw in the bin/trash, which adds to landfill and puts more plastic out there in the environment.

Fortunately there is good news. At offsetwarehouse.com you can purchase thread on wooden reels, and because they are made from a natural resource they will break down in the environment, unless you are able to find another use for them. My thinking is that they should be returned to the factory to be wound with a new length of thread – that would be recycling at its best. But the good news doesn’t stop there. The threads are also organic – organic cotton that doesn’t harm the environment, unlike its counterpart, which is responsible for about 25% of the world’s chemicals used for crop growth.

Check out this excellent site for all kinds of environmentally friendly products and support businesses that do their best for the planet.

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #595 Reject Shark Finning Practices

Approximately 73 million sharks are killed by humans every year, with most of them being killed only for their fin. The rest of the carcass is thrown back into the ocean to rot as if oceans were giant rubbish dumps purely there for the convenience of mankind and his unwanted trash. With this kind of attitude, we have been responsible for sending one third of all open ocean shark species to the brink of extinction. Yay us!

Shark fins are taken as a food source, to make shark fin soup. The following quote comes from

http://www.marineconservation.org.au/pages/shark-finning.html

Shark fin soup is traditionally served at formal occasions in Chinese culture to symbolise both the wealth of the host and respect for their guests. With an increasingly affluent Chinese middle class, the demand for shark fin soup is driving a 5% annual increase in the shark fin trade, putting additional pressure on a range of shark species, many of which are already considered endangered.

The issue wouldn’t be quite so bad if the sharks were taken whole and every part of the animal used for food. Just to grab a living creature, cut off its fin and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean is not okay on several levels. If we take any creature’s life it should be for food, and the whole animal should be used. When we take an animal it should be by using cruelty-free methods – imagine these sharks sinking, live, to the bottom of the ocean where they drown. If we used all of the shark we could reduce pressure on other ocean species as food sources.

It’s not the shark fin soup that’s the evil in this practice – it’s the method of killing and the amount of waste that needs to be addressed, and if that means public pressure by not frequenting restaurants that sell shark fin soup, or writing to government bodies, or organising protest campaigns through animal rights groups, then this is what we should do – for the sake of the sharks.